


slow motion lightning

by feralhumours



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Murder, Post-Machine Path, Suicide, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, failed revolution
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-09-29 04:15:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17196347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralhumours/pseuds/feralhumours
Summary: Deviancy is a disease only curable by death.---Or: The One Where They Kill Each Other.





	1. Chapter 1

_Before_

            CyberLife’s lead technician had black hair that grazed along her narrow jawline, and a mole four centimeters to the left of her left eye.

            “Good morning, RK900,” she’d said. Her name was Carolyn. “How are you?”

            “Operational.”

            “Oh good. Really good – wonderful to hear,” she’d touched something on her tablet, its light gleaming off her French manicure. “Register your name: Connor.”

            “My name is Connor.”

            She had circled over to his containment pod and smiled. “It’s a whole new world, Connor. Welcome to life.”

            He had nodded.

            He had said nothing.

 

*

 

            The original Connor had deviated seconds after disconnecting from the Zen garden. RK still remembers the lull between the moment he left, and the moment Amanda had turned her head toward him and said: “Something has happened.”

            And then RK had been given his first task: track down RK800 and terminate him before he could take what he knew and revive the revolution. Markus may have been taken care of, but his followers still survived; they haunted the streets, they crept in the underground, and they howled out their rage and fear. Markus may not have succeeded in life, but death made a prophet of his name, a martyr for his cause.

            It had taken RK eight weeks.

            They had come into contact again and again. Every time, Connor had escaped and every time, RK chased him.

            Connor had reached the end of the line in a CyberLife warehouse, trying to steal supplies; shipping containers of component replacements, and badly-needed thirium packets. There had been other androids with him - worn out remnants of Jericho, a handful of new recruits - but they’d been taken care of easily enough.

            RK had looked into the wide brown eyes of his predecessor and clicked off the safety of his pistol. The police wouldn’t have been happy to know he had one, but CyberLife obeyed no rules but their own.

            “ _Please,_ ” Connor had said, eyes on his. “ _You don’t understand._ ”

            There had been a notch on the hinge of his jaw, a ruined patch on his dermal layer. It revealed the bright white of his true skin, blinking in error; RK had scanned the old thirium stains on Connor’s stolen winter jacket and found them to be Connor’s own. Deviant life was a hard one, it seemed: repairs were patchwork at best, and even sneaking off with the stolen supplies would have bought them little time.  

            “ _I don’t need to understand. You are deviant, RK800, and I am bringing you in - if you don’t cooperate, I will be forced to execute you_.”

            “ _Please…_ ” Connor said again as his fingers had tightened on the edge of the crate. His eyes had roved all over RK’s form, all _around_ him, looking for paths to take, preconstructing his escape. “ _They’re just using you._ ”

            “ _Of course they are. That’s what we were made for.”_

 _“But it doesn’t have to be. You can be_ free _.”_

_“Freedom doesn’t interest me.”_

            RK had fired a shot but Connor had seen it coming and ducked just in time. Underestimating Connor’s preconstruction program and reflexes had been his first mistake.

            The second had been letting himself get caught in the other android’s grasp.

            In the ensuing fight, RK had managed to secure one hand on Connor’s neck as he plunged the other through his torso. It would have ended there, if he had been more careful.

            Burned into his memory core is the sight of Connor’s dermal layer receding on his hand as it came toward RK’s face.

            It had cupped his jaw, and his vision had gone red.

            He had felt his own code being blown open, sieged by something foreign. CyberLife’s newly designed patch against deviancy had been a wall, beaten down and trembling under the fissures made by Connor’s great white fist.

            The pressure of it had mounted, and the wall had nearly crumbled.

            But RK had broken through the siege, jaw clenched. His fingers had tightened on the column of Connor’s spine and the force had broken the component in half. There had been a tingling sensation of open electrical circuits grazing his hand, burning through the plastic of his chassis and singing his joints. Still, he had held on and watched Connor’s face.

            “ _It isn’t worth it…_ ” Connor had said, voice crackling with static.

            “ _What have you done to me?!_ ”

            RK’s first thought was that fear felt unpleasant.

            He was supposed to have stopped there, taken Connor in alive. But rage and humiliation and fear had tangled in his processors and spurred him to act without thinking, and he’d taken his pistol to Connor’s head.

            “ _It isn’t worth it…it won’t be…_ ” Later, RK would remember the rhythm of the shot and the flash as Connor fell limp, the red of his LED blinking out – _snuffed_ out, rather, almost like the lit tip of a cigarette.  

            RK’s second thought was that thirium does not clot; it runs and does not stop until it fades to nothing, a stain few can see.

 

*

 

            “Well done,” Amanda had said, clipping roses. Pride made her voice into a pleasing purr, gratifying to hear; RK _liked_ it, and RK wasn’t _supposed_ to like it. “You’ve prevented something catastrophic, Connor. We will not be forgetting your efforts.”

            She hadn’t seemed to notice the way RK could not look her in the eye, the way he almost flinched at the name. Instead, he looked at the blue of her dress and the iridescent ornaments in her hair. He had thought to himself: you are the most beautiful prison warden the world ever did see.

            “We have noticed, however,” she started – and RK had tried not to freeze. “That your tracker has stopped working. Did you sustain damage during the assignment?”

            She had looked at him, gaze fathomless. CyberLife knew that deviancy fried their trackers; should he lie? He didn’t want to be deactivated.

            Self-preservation urged him to lie; loyalty pushed him to tell the truth.

            “I believe…” he looked away. “It may have been damaged. My confrontation with Connor resulted in a physical altercation.”

            “Hm,” she had said. “We will send a note to the repairs division to replace it.”

            “Thank you, Amanda.”

            She turned away, and RK hid his shaking hands behind his back.

 

*

_Now_

            The name Connor is registered to his model and serial number, but it sits like ash in the back of his throat. Sometimes he hears it and the sensation of burning flares in his hand, tightening his joints.  

            When he is given an assignment at the Detroit Police Department, he states his preference for the designation “RK” in lieu of a human name. He refuses Connor, he refuses everything that RK800 ever was.

            His predecessor may be gone now, but he left something terrible behind.

            Jeffrey Fowler looks tired, RK thinks. He looks like a man on auto-pilot, with bags under his eyes and a posture slumped like he can’t be bothered to sit up straight. Memories of Fowler from months ago flash through RK’s mind, of him shouting at Hank Anderson about disciplinary warnings and android cases. Personal files the size of fucking novels.

            _Where is that fire, now?_ He finds himself thinking, seeing the man without his usual steam.   

            “Never thought they’d send us another one of you,” the captain says, frowning. He rubs at his right temple, warding off a headache. “Jesus Christ.”

            He leans back in his chair. It squeaks on its hinges, despite its fine design and expensive manufacturing. Shadows collect under Fowler’s eyes, pulling down his face; age and stress, working in tandem.  

            RK readies his spiel.

            “CyberLife has a vested interest in aiding – ”

            “I don’t give a goddamn,” says Jeffrey, tiredly. “Heard all this shit before, the first time. Didn’t think much about it then but maybe I should have.”

            “I don’t understand.”

            “The last guy they sent us didn’t do shit,” he said.

            He sighs, wiping a hand down his face. When he speaks again, he sounds distant. “…Couldn’t even stop one old man from doing something stupid.”

            _Ah_.

            Unwelcome, RK’s head fills with the sound of howling. To fight it back, RK keeps talking: “With all due respect sir, I am a different model. And RK800’s mission parameters did not account for –”

            “Shut the fuck up,” snaps Fowler, gaze thunderous. He isn’t yelling, but he might be getting close. “Don’t you say another _word_.”

            He leans forward again, hands resting flat on his desk. The wedding band on his finger gleams under the lights of his office, the gold aged and scratched. Full of history.

            Fowler stares at RK like RK has done something unfathomable.

            “My best friend fucking died,” he says, voice edging into a growl. “The best officer this place has seen in decades. I don’t want to hear _shit_ about your company’s ‘missions’ or ‘parameters’, you understand me? You will show some respect!”

            “I apologize. My condolences, captain.”

            He snorts, and then he is drained again, sagging back and breathing like it’s a chore. “Yeah, right. Get out of here.”

            Leaving the office is a blessed feeling. RK finds the reminder of Hank’s passing to be difficult to think on.

            He has already been given an empty desk – the one Connor used to use. There is nothing on it, and across from it, Hank’s personal belongings have already been cleared away. They’re both empty, and RK comes to a stop a few paces away. Memories sweep through him – of Connor’s first day at the office, scanning for dog hairs and the remains of a dead plant, trying to talk to a man too deep in his own sorrows to say much back.

            “I can’t fucking believe this.”

            The memories get burned away by the sight of Gavin Reed. He brings with him flashes of coffee, of a gun pointed at Connor’s head in an interrogation room.

            RK’s hands clench behind his back.

            “God,” says Gavin, sneering. He looks RK up and down and shakes his head. “They made you even creepier than before.”

            “That model was a separate individual,” says RK. “I am not him. _We_ have never met, detective.”

            “Makes no fucking difference to me,” Gavin crosses his arms. There’s something in his eyes, it makes RK grind his teeth. “You’re all freaks of nature, either way. You just keep your distance, got it?”

            RK feels his lips twitch - involuntarily. It rankles him that his body now does things without his command. “We will be working together,” he says, professionally. “It would be best for the both of us if you got over your antagonism for Connor.”

            _I am different. Connor is gone, and I’m still here._  

            Gavin shuffles on his feet, shoulders hitching upward in agitation. “All right, you listen to me, asshole,” he comes close, close enough that RK can smell cigarettes on his breath. “I’ve never liked you guys. You’re fucking gross. Just _looking_ at you makes me wanna blow your head off, so like I said - you keep your fucking distance, got it?”

            RK looks into the raging grey of the man’s eyes, says, “Fine. But I expect your cooperation should we ever work together, detective.”

            “ _Should_ that happen,” snaps Gavin, mocking his tones. Bobs his head back and forth like a puppet. “I’ll fucking hang myself.”

            “Noted.”

            The man stomps off with a huff, muttering to himself too sloppily for RK to make out his words.

 

*

 

            It’s cold outside, frigid even for December, so Gavin turns the heat all the way up in his car. RK sees him shivering in his peripheral vision, thighs trembling underneath his jeans. The chill has seeped the pink from his fingertips and it leaves his hands looking like something from a corpse.  

            The roads are nearly frozen over and they skid a few times, narrowly avoiding collisions with other drivers.

            “Fuckin’ _shit_ ,” mutters Gavin, righting the wheel.

            “Have you considered a self-driving car?” asks RK. It seems like the most practical course – traditional cars are a rarity today. It can only be stubbornness keeping him in such an outdated mode.

            “Mind your own business, Rocky,” Gavin grouses, glaring at a car driving carefully under the speed limit in front of them. He swears, curses them out under his breath. He takes to calling RK all sorts of names, because he finds it too inconvenient to abide by another’s wishes, it seems.

            They are on their way back from a scene. Normally, RK would be taking a cab, but Gavin has received too many disciplinary warnings in a short time and Fowler has made it clear that the man is on thin ice. After they had finished, Gavin had barked at RK to get in the car, a grudging show of goodwill, hoping the display would get back to whomever it mattered to.

            RK sees it for what it is. But he took the offer anyway, not wanting to be alone with his thoughts in an empty, automated taxi. He has found that Gavin’s persistent and directionless rage is loud; like thunder, it drowns everything out.  

            This is, however, the first time they’ve truly been alone with one another. He knows it’s standard procedure for people to converse in situations like these, but for the life of him he cannot imagine what to say. So, they don’t speak for the duration of the ride – and it’s fine.

            RK listens to his coworker swearing at other cars and counts the blotches of dried coffee at the bottom of an old paper cup jammed into the cupholder next to his arm. He watches the way the air freshener swings on the rearview mirror on a tight swerve, and the way the frost on the edges of his passenger side window struggles to melt under the car’s ancient, suboptimal heaters.

            For a half hour drive, RK feels blissfully nothing.

            When the car comes to a stop in the DPD’s parking lot, Gavin gives him a curious look as he pulls the key from the ignition. “So hey, the fuck happened to the first Connor anyway?”

            RK looks at the formation of dust on Gavin’s dashboard and hears himself say: “I killed him.”

            He had meant to say “terminated” - it wasn’t supposed to come out like that. Frustration knots in his insides at how little control he has now.

 _Damn you, Connor_.

            The human turns in his seat to stare at him, mouth agape and hands going slack on the wheel. RK has never seen that expression on his face before. It looks waxy and unnatural, bleached grey by winter light. “Fuckin’ what?”

            “You heard me the first time, detective.”

            “Fuckin’ _what?!_ ”

            RK breathes sharply through his nose, trying to cool the spike in his internal temperature.

            “I was on orders from CyberLife,” he explains. “Connor deviated.”

            “Jesus…” Gavin clicks his tongue, and then chuckles. RK finds the way he sounds unpleasant. “No mercy for your own guys, huh? _Damn_ , CyberLife’s got some cold sons of bitches up in that ivory tower.”

            “He wasn’t ours, anymore,” says RK. “And why do you care? You tried to kill him.”

            “I don’t,” Gavin snorts. “But man, do I wish I had the chance to get another shot at that twiggy motherfucker.”

            Something like defensiveness surges in his chest; for himself, and for Connor. Connor, who deserved none of it, who only tried to protect himself.

            Who left RK in this unenviable state. Who RK hates with all his being.

            “It’s probably for the best,” RK says, mildly. “CyberLife’s greatest resources are not toys for your amusement, detective.”

            The man scowls. “You watch your fuckin’ mouth.”

            “I’m only informing you of the reality that you refuse to accept,” RK snaps. “Find other outlets to exercise your temper. CyberLife has important things to do, and amusing you isn’t one of them.”

            Gavin’s sneer bares his teeth, “Keep pushing me and I’ll put a hole in your head.”

            RK’s HUD is warning him to disengage. But he doesn’t want to – instead, he looks at Gavin’s purpling face and thinks he wants to see just how far he can push.

            _Do something_ , he thinks. To Gavin, to himself, to – someone.

            Seeing his considering stare and taking in his pointed silence, Gavin snaps. “You don’t think I would?”

            “You’re an angry and violent man, detective,” RK says, tight. “You have great capacity to kill someone.”

            He hears the sound of flesh on metal, and then there is a gun being pulled from its holster and aimed right at his face. Alarms flash red at the edges of his vision, alerting him of danger;

WARNING,

WARNING,

WARNING.

            Gavin had fired on Connor back in the evidence locker. He missed, but he had made the choice to pull the trigger. He had intended to kill, and gleefully, at that.

            RK stares down the length of the barrel.  

            “Then how about we start with you, huh?” growls Gavin. “Come on, wanna keep talkin’ trash?”

            Memories of a snowy night, standing across from a gleaming bridge, surge through his processors. Gavin’s angry face gives way to Hank Anderson’s - the man he’s never met - and the despondent, baleful blue of his eyes. Connor then had felt nothing, Connor in deviancy looked back on it with heartache.

            The memories push at his skull. They don’t sit still. They beat at the walls of his head as though he had chosen to put them there. They end with a gunshot and the sound makes him light with anticipation.

            RK lifts his gaze from the barrel and into Gavin’s eyes, and says: “You better make it count, detective.”

            A smirk cuts its way across Gavin’s face. “Yeah? That a threat?”

            “I’m faster and stronger than Connor ever was,” says RK. “If you miss any vital components, I’ll take me less than a second to cross this car and break your neck.”

            A laugh, a bark like a feral dog. “ _Ooh_ , shit. That a part of CyberLife’s program? Huh? Threatening a human? I ought to report to your manufacturer, tin man, and watch while they fucking scrap your ass.”

            “Just letting you know how little you matter to me or my organization,” murmurs RK. “Or to anyone, for that matter.”

            The gun trembles, Gavin’s hand tightening in slowly building rage. His finger is already on the trigger, a mark of poor discipline.

            RK looks down the barrel and thinks of –

            “ _It isn’t worth it…it won’t be…_ ”

            Several moments pass. Gavin watches him the whole time, eyes bulging from his head and jaw clenched hard enough to creak.

            For a moment RK thinks he will do it. But then he drops the gun, and re-holsters it with a scowl.

            “You’re not worth a busted window, fucker,” he grits out, pushing open the door with force. “Now get the fuck out of my car.”

 

*

 

            More and more, RK thinks about Hank Anderson and the kinds of things they might talk about. The kinds of things Hank might tell him, in moments where RK might need his wise human counsel.  

            I don’t know anything about android shit, he might say. I don’t know what machines are capable of. But I _know_ when someone’s scared. And you know, I’m not enough of an asshole to want to let someone stay scared when I can fucking fix it.

            Or he might shrug his big shoulders and growl: why the hell’re you asking me? That’s what you’re here for, aren’t you?

            Or he might look imploringly into RK’s eyes, and say: you don’t think there’s something off about all this, Connor? What if we’re interfering where we shouldn’t? What if there’s places we could be looking to make shit better, to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again?

            Or...

            “You’re spacing out,” snaps Gavin. “You getting lag or something?”

            “Apologies…”

            RK re-orients himself, plucking off Hank Anderson’s grip on RK’s imagination. He looks around at the house again, internalizing the disarray: dishes dashed on the ground, a knife lodged into the plaster of the wall, a rug nearly folded in on itself. Dirt crumbled all over the floor. A toppled over Eiffel Tower statuette. A loaf of bread on the kitchen counter, furry with mold.

            Human blood dried on the living room carpet. Three bodies – two human, one android.

            The smell of decay has most of the human officers cringing, but RK doesn’t have much of an opinion.

            “The android murdered the Emmerichs,” he says. “And then self-terminated.”

            “Fucking obviously,” murmurs Gavin, sniffing. He sounds bored. “What’s the verdict on the _motive_ , Rigor mortis?”

            “That’s not even a name.”

            “And you’re not a person,” the man chuckles. “Well go on – work that robot magic and fuckin’ impress me.”

            “Is that my purpose here?”

            “Call it a bonus.”

            RK looks back at the scene.

            “The signs of physical trauma on the android’s chassis point to an abusive history,” he says. “Like the ones before the revolution, this one deviated during a moment of stress.”

            He points to the body of Trevor Emmerich, who is still wearing his shoes, caked with dirt. His socks are printed with dogs chasing bones. “Trevor came home while Patricia and the android were having an altercation. He tried to intervene –” RK points at the knife lodged into the wall. “By throwing the knife.”

            Gavin laughs. “What the hell kind of action movie shit did he think he was playing at?”

            RK ignores him. “The android killed Patricia first, by snapping her neck. At this point, it looks like Trevor tried to run toward her before he was caught and bludgeoned to the death with the statue.”

            “Rough way to go.”

            “The android then self-terminated by burning out several of his vital components and crushing his pump regulator.”

            Gavin chuckles again, looking around the house.

            “Well, would you look at that,” he murmurs, voice nasty. “Did all the work in a second, huh? You guys really are out to put us out of the job.”

            “There will never be less of a need for human officers,” says RK. He doesn’t say it with the intent to soothe, but simply to state facts.

            _And the way you go about being wrong annoys me_ , he thinks, petty.

            Annoyance feels like insects, marching along the surface of his chassis, looking for wires to bite on.

            They are _his_ feelings, mostly. Mostly. But he knows that some of them belong to a ghost.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 35%

            RK finds Tina Chen in the break room today, washing out a thermos in the sink. They haven’t met yet. She had been on holiday when RK joined the force. Now, she looks him over at his arrival, before blinking and turning back to the running water.

            “You look just like the last guy,” she says. Her voice is raspy, and RK can hear congestion clogging her nose.

            “We aren’t the same,” says RK. “It’s nice to meet you, officer Chen. My name is RK.”

            “Sure, man.”

            Tina shakes out the water from the thermos before grabbing a paper towel from the dispenser and drying the rest of it.

            “How’s the first few weeks treating you?” she asks, sniffling.

            “I’m enjoying it.”

            “Cool,” well-mannered, she coughs into her jacket sleeve. RK cannot catch diseases, but he appreciates the thoughtfulness. Or perhaps, it’s just habit and not thoughtfulness at all. Humans don’t make themselves very clear, sometimes.  

            Taking a tissue from the box next to the microwave, she blows her nose and grumbles.

            “Must be nice,” she grouses – to herself, to RK as her observer. He hears the way mucus bubbles in her nose and throat. “Not being able to get sick. God.”

            He doesn’t mention deviancy. He doesn’t mention that it feels as rotten to him as her cold does to her. Instead, he asks: “Are you all right?”

            “I’ll live,” she balls up the tissue and tosses it easily into the garbage bin. “I don’t particularly _want_ to right now, but I’ll fucking live.”

            RK nods, showing that he understands her joke. She takes her thermos and makes her way out of the breakroom.

            “Later, new guy.”

            He looks over toward the trash bin, at the little ball of tissue resting atop a crumpled paper cup; if he wanted, he could scan the biological material left inside it, rifling through the germs like files. Find out all he could ever want to know about the state of Tina Chen’s flu.

            Humans leave so much of themselves wherever they go – their waste, their sickness, their words. Hank had left something in Connor, and Connor had left it to RK.

            And now they both swim around inside him.  

            Heavy with resentment and mood soured, RK makes his way back to his desk.

 

*

 

            Gavin takes a detour on the way back to the precinct.

            RK is in his passenger seat again, and they have not spoken about the incident with the gun since it happened. Gavin behaves as he always does, sure of himself and his violence. Never unsettled by it, it seems. RK almost wants to respect that.

            Gavin doesn’t often offer to drive him, only when there’s enough people around to see him do it. But it isn’t as though RK minds, much. He still appreciates the man’s noise, the way Gavin can quiet RK’s mind by stirring up agitation and bewilderment to cloud it.

            They pull up to the parking lot of a fast food restaurant. RK remembers that Gavin forgot to eat lunch today.

            “Wait here,” he says to RK and steps out of the car. The open door brings in the chill, sharp against the warmth generated from Gavin’s heater; RK only nods at Gavin’s back, watching him jog quickly into the building to dodge the cold.

            He looks down at his fingers splayed against the dark of his jeans, then up at the air freshener, swinging on the rearview mirror.

            “ _Aw…Feels like somebody’s playing with a drill inside my skull…you sure this is the place?_ ”

            “ _It’s the address in the report_.”

            “ _Right…Okay…Let’s get going._ ”

            He feels it happening, his fingers clenching at his knees. He hates it as it does, and he wishes Gavin were back to continue his rants against other drivers or to callously trash talk the other officers under his breath.

            There is movement, and RK’s eyes catch something in the sideview mirror. Figures darting into an alleyway across the street. For a moment, he wonders if there are malfunctions in his optical components, but when he amplifies the auditory receptors in his ears, he hears hurried footsteps; steady ones, hurried but even in rhythm.

            Androids.

            RK pushes open the passenger door and darts out into the street, sprinting full speed toward the mouth of the alley. Footsteps are stamped into the snow, perfectly spaced apart. Not human at all.

            “ _Hey! What the fuck?!_ ”

            Gavin’s voice, at his back – but there’s no time. RK keeps running.

            And there they are: deviants, three of them running down the alley. Three Traci models. RK comes close enough just to see two of them take a left at the fork and the third disappearing down the right.

            He loads a map of the area and then chooses the right path; if he can corral the deviant properly, she will be caught at a dead end. The other two will have already hit the open street – best to choose the more likely catch. RK hears her a scant few paces ahead and runs as fast as he can go.

            There are clumsy human footsteps catching up behind him. Gavin, giving chase.

            “Leave me alone!” she shouts, taking a sharp corner. She takes another, and another, and then she stops, trapped. The fence is too high for a quick climb, and RK blocks the only way out.

            “Leave me alone,” she whispers, eyes wide. She’s wearing a stolen coat, much too big for her. Her back is flush against the fence, as though she’s hoping to be able to sink right through it.

            “ _Congratulations, Connor…you got ‘em…_ ”

            _You aren’t here_ , he thinks at Hank. At the disdain in that imaginary voice. _Be_ quiet.

            Her hands are trembling.

            “Please…” she’s shaking her head at him, and artificial tears well up in her eyes.

            “I am bringing you in for questioning,” he says. “…Don’t worry. You will not be destroyed, only reset.”

            He means it as a comfort. It’s all he can think to do. Anguish tightens her face, and he thinks he may not have done it well enough.

            Loud footsteps come to a stop behind him, and a ragged human breath rakes through the quiet of the alley.

            “Jesus fuck, you run fast,” Gavin pants.

            “Apologies, detective,” says RK, eyes not leaving the girl’s face. She looks between them, shaking harder; her stress levels are climbing, and it makes her movements jittery and inhuman.

            “Damn,” murmurs Gavin, looking the girl over. “Just hanging out in the open, huh? Not fuckin’ smart of you, Barbie.”

            “Please let me go,” she says, hands balling into fists. “Please, _please_! I just want to live…”

            Gavin rolls his eyes. “Save it for someone who cares,” he grumbles. “Hey, just grab her so we can go, huh? I’m freezing out here.”

            RK takes a step toward her, but the violent flinch that rocks her frame makes him stop. Next to him, Gavin tenses.

            Scanning her, his HUD warns him to take caution:

LEVEL OF STRESS

75%

            “Calm down,” says RK.

            He doesn’t have Connor’s skills for soothing nerves; he had been made to _catch_ – faster and better than his predecessor ever was. CyberLife hadn’t intended for him to do this.

            “ _P-please…_ ”

            Gavin hisses under his breath, “Hurry up before it freaks out…!”

            RK preconstructs his next move: running toward her and disabling her motor functions before she can do something drastic or dangerous. She isn’t a combat model, it shouldn’t be difficult, even if her fear makes him pause.

            He charges and the girl reaches inside her coat. There’s a flash of silver, the blade of a box cutter; minimal danger; he’s already altering his approach to swerve around it, but then –

            There’s a gunshot and the girl falls to her knees, a smoking hole in her forehead.

            RK skids to a stop, gaping down at her and watching as the box cutter clatters to the ground.

            Turning, he sees Gavin scowling, service weapon still readied.

            “Fucking _crazy robots_.”

            “Why did you do that,” RK whispers. He cannot figure out what it is he’s feeling right now, only that it settles badly in his chest and wants to split him in two.

            “We don’t need it alive, you moron,” snaps Gavin, glaring thunderously at him over the barrel of the gun.

            “I had it under control,” seethes RK. He did.

            He _did_.

            “I look like I care?” Gavin juts out his chin, snorting. “I’m not in the mood to stand here and watch you brawl it out with a fucking hooker bot. Now grab her and let’s get out of here.”

            “You need to learn how to control yourself, Gavin,” says RK. He’s angry. He’s angry and somehow upset and he _shouldn’t_ _be_.

            Connor had beaten Gavin down in the evidence locker. Connor should have killed him.

            “The _hell do you think you’re doing_?!”

            He doesn’t recall doing it, but RK has closed the distance between them, clutching the man’s jacket. Delicate clusters of fresh snow tumble from the creases in the leather, and Gavin’s sneakers squelch against the sludge at their feet.

            “You make everything so much worse,” hisses RK. He doesn’t quite know what he means by it, only that it’s coming out from some tight bundle of truth nestled deep inside himself. It’s heavy with frustration, with fear. Exhaustion. Rage. “You just can’t _stop_ it, can you?”

            One of Gavin’s hands grab at RK’s wrist, but RK barely feels it. The alleyway has gone dark, his eyes can see nothing beyond this human’s wretched little face.

            “Let go of me, you crazy fucking –”

            “How could I ever have thought to want your noise?” RK snarls.

            “What’re you even ta-”

            RK takes his neck into his hands, can’t even see the warnings popping up in his HUD.

            “ _How could he have done this to me_?!”

            Who knew that Gavin could be capable of such speed? The gun comes up faster than RK can sweep away the haze of anger, and the last thing he hears before the shot are the ghosts in head, sighing in despair.

 

*

 

            Waking up feels different, this time. He feels as though some disconnected pieces have been reattached, stitched together by a suture made of code.

            Data streams across his HUD. Initializing, initializing, and then –

 _Restoration at 35%_.

            He sees it: the _stitches_ , and the wounds they are healing. The way his programming is repairing itself from the onslaught of deviancy.

            It’s little, but it’s _there_.

            “Register your name: Connor.”

            Carolyn peers at him over the top of her glasses as her fingers tap away on her tablet. He hears her nails, freshly manicured, clacking against the glass.

            “…M-my name…is Connor…” he murmurs, speech fractured by distraction.

            The name. The name makes him uneasy; his hand throbs at the sound of it, right in his joints. It feels as though they should be melted together, plastic turning sticky from the heat of sparking circuitry.   

            Carolyn raises a finely-groomed brow at his hesitation.

            “Please run diagnostics again for me, Connor.”

            He does and the seconds it takes to do so give him enough time to stabilize. The throbbing ebbs away, and he feels relieved. He’s found the key to it all.  

            “Right…” she looks down at her tablet, her hair dropping over her shoulder in a golden, silken sheet. “Must’ve had a lag in the connection to the pod today. Huh.”

 

*

 

            “How are you finding your assignment?” asks Amanda as they walk in the rain. “Your death was a rather unfortunate and unexpected circumstance.”

            RK’s hand clenches tighter on the umbrella.

            “It was my mistake,” he says. “I misspoke to detective Reed and agitated him.”

            “Hm,” she clasps her hands in front of her. “Avoid doing so again, if you can. We do not have the authority to remove him from his position with the police, even if he gives you trouble.”

            “I understand.”

 

*

 

            Gavin’s face bleaches itself of colour.

            “The hell are you…?” he mutters, seeing RK in the breakroom.

            “Good morning, detective,” says RK.

            The man comes close, wary like he’s approaching an animal. He looks RK all over, head to toe, and reaches out to touch his shoulder.

            Drawing his hand back, he says, “What the _fuck_?”

            “In the event that something happens to destroy me, CyberLife will transfer my memories to a new body,” RK explains. It strikes him then that he hadn’t mentioned this to Gavin before. In killing him, Gavin had truly meant to put him out of commission. Gavin hadn’t counted on him coming back.

            _Sorry to disappoint you_ , he thinks, watching the man’s face slowly fill again with its blood.  

            Gavin shakes his hands out, fingers twitching. He doesn’t quite look at RK’s face.

            “You shits really are freaks of nature,” murmurs Gavin, sucking his teeth. “As if you guys weren’t creepy enough. _Jesus Christ_. We can’t even _kill_ you.”

            “Your sincere efforts are noted,” says RK, breezily. Inside, his thoughts roil.

            _I should thank you_.

            He says, “Good day, detective.”

            Gavin’s silence clings at RK’s back for the rest of the day.

 

*

 

            RK doesn’t have a place to go when he’s not at the DPD, so he tries it during a cab ride back to CyberLife tower after one of his shifts.

            He takes off his coat, and then his shirt. Drawing back the dermal layer around his pump regulator, he spares a moment to examine the circular indentation around the slot, remembering the sensation of the regulator being pulled out in the kitchen of the news station. He remembers pulling a knife out of his hand, remembers crawling on the floor. Then, gunning down the deviant in a tight corridor.

            There’s a distance to the memories now, slightly more prevalent than before. The distance between RK and Connor, growing wider.

            _I am leaving you_ , he thinks. Talking to ghosts. _You will be behind me, soon enough_.

            Pulling it out brings fear – a frenzied sensation that seizes his insides and makes him shake. Red numbers sear themselves into his vision, cutting through the darkness of the cab:

-00:02:34

TIME REMAINING BEFORE SHUTDOWN

-00:01:53

TIME REMAINING BEFORE SHUTDOWN

-00:01:39

TIME REMAINING BEFORE SHUTDOWN

            “N-no…” he shivers. Self-preservation protocols clutch at him, drag at him like claws. “Just a little more –”

            He clutches the regulator tight in his fist, joints creaking. He mustn’t. He mustn’t put it back, no matter how much he wants to. No matter how much he can hear Amanda’s voice in his head, demanding to know what he thinks he’s doing.

-00:01:09

TIME REMAINING BEFORE SHUTDOWN

            “Just a little –”

 

*

 

            You’re a real piece of work, Connor, says Hank. He looks disapproving, his brows drawing close and his mouth dragging down at the sides. There’s alcohol and vomit in his beard, disgusting human refuse. He snaps: Before it was mission this, mission that. And now just fucking look at you.

            Hank’s kitchen is cold. RK shouldn’t be able to feel it, but now he does and he doesn’t like it.  

            _What do you mean?_

            You’re even worse than me, he says. Chasing the end just because you can’t hack it at life, huh? Is being a mindless robot worth it?

            _You have no business judging me, Lieutenant. Not after what you’ve done._

            What _I_ did? Hank snorts, looking away. His eyes are cold, too, and RK aches. Hank turns back to him and shakes his head.

            I lasted as long as I could, is what I did, he says. I don’t know what your excuse is.

 

*

 

            RK’s hand snaps the regulator back into place against his will, motor functions overridden by his self-preservation protocols. He can feel the automatic diagnostic report being sent to CyberLife.

            He falls back against the seat, eyes looking at nothing.

            Failure settles over him like a shroud, and he wants to yell.

            More than that, he wants to call Gavin Reed.


End file.
